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Reviews
More American Graffiti (1979)
Not the iconic film the original is but...
More American Graffiti captures something of the transition from innocence to a constant worry with life and death issues that were very much a part of coming of age from the mid-Sixties onward. In 1973, there was a poignancy to the end of the original when the fates of four of the main characters were revealed. This becomes the launching point for the sequel. If the ending of the original hit you like a hammer -- as I think it did most audiences in 1973 -- put this on your list of movies to rent some day. If not, well, too bad: you have already missed experiencing something important about the original. American Graffiti, fond look back that it is, was conceived and executed at a time of tumult. More American Graffiti is a bittersweet look back at the tumult in which loose ends are tied up and favorite characters come alive again. Not as vividly, to be sure, but satisfyingly, nonetheless.
With Honors (1994)
Monty Kessler is on track to graduate from Harvard till the one copy of his thesis falls into the hands of a squatter in the library basement
Monty Kessler (Fraser) is a Harvard senior on track to graduate with honors under the tutelage of conservative Prof. Pitkannan, portrayed with delightful condescension (and irony) by Vidal. Mistrustful of humanity, his father having walked out on him and his mother, Kessler has absorbed Pitkannan's viewpoint that the U.S. Constitution's "faith in the wisdom of the people" is misplaced, and has adopted this as the premise of his thesis, the one copy of which falls into the hands of self-described bum Simon Wilder (Pesci). Wilder's extraction of favors from Kessler as the price for returning pages is the film's McGuffin.
As a plot device, this is admittedly strained, but so's that of "Groundhog Day," another film in which the protagonist learns that there's more to life than being a self-absorbed jackass. While Kessler's character is not as sorely in need of a makeover as Bill Murray's Phil Connors, the experience of satisfying Wilder's demands, then caring for, and finally, caring about him, transforms Kessler, as well as his three house-mates, played by Kelly, Dempsey and Hamilton.
Several of the negative railings of the film on this site seem to be by "conservatives" offended by Kessler's abandonment of a Hobbesian world view in favor of an embrace of humanity, warts and all. Certainly the film is somewhat preachy and a bit clichéd, yet it is hardly hackneyed. Pesci's Wilder is a stand-in for the life-embracing American archetype immortalized in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," quotations from which arise seamlessly in the plot.
Fraser's portrayal of Kessler is sincere and unaffected, less broad and superficial than his better known work in films such as "Bedazzled" and "The Mummy." Kelly, Dempsey and Hamilton, like Fraser in their twenties at the time, each capture something essential and vulnerable in the college students they portray. Through their performances, "With Honors" delves into aspects of college life seldom attempted in American cinema--the experience of forming friendships with promising (and even not so promising) young peers in a world where ideas matter and that life's most valuable lessons are seldom learned in the classroom.